The Fly

The common housefly is something we don't often take a close look at, but in this extreme macro image you can really appreciate how colourful it is, with its rust red eyes and black and white stripes. I was surprised to see that the wings even have an iridescent quality to them, kind of like oil on water. Image is the result of a stack of about 6 images -- not perfect, but the best I could at the time. Nikon D600, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f2/.8 with Kenko extension tubes.

Yellow ladybird

As far as I can tell, this is a spotless yellow ladybird. This is the second test of focus stacking -- this is a stack of four images focussed at slightly different points to produce a final photo that has most of the ladybird in focus. Nikon D600, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 with extension tubes.

Product + Portrait

 

I've been shooting portraits for my work for a while now and I realise I've not posted them online before except for the unedited portrait of Nellie (a couple of posts below). This is one of the better ones I've shot recently. Believe it or not there's very little editing that I did on it -- the work was to remove the background and turn it white. The lighting setup is pretty simple -- two softboxes with two Nikon SB-600 flashguns on either side and that's it. The main thing is to show the product (which is the Samsung Galaxy Gear on the model's wrist) so being able to see the watch clearly with its display is very important. I was just very happy with how the lighting turned out on this one. Nikon D600, AF-S Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 VR.

The Inner Light

Sometimes I get inspired to shoot something in an unusual way. This is actually a 3D printed skull made by a team at Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur for surgical training and research. I was there on assignment and while I shot the regular image of the skull, I thought that I could make it a lot funkier by putting a wireless flash in the skull itself and shooting that. It's not a studio shot by any means -- it was taken right at the table they had set up to display the item and the reason the background is all black is that the exposure from the flash is so bright compared to the ambient light that the background was underexposed and appears black. Nikon D600, AF-S Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5.

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Red and green

I'm not really sure if this shot works or not, but I kind of like it. It's a bit of a rainy day project, where I had some lime seedlings I had growing in my kitchen. I put them next to a window with a red plastic bag I had as a backdrop and had a bit of wireless flash coming from the top to help illuminate the seedlings a little bit. Nikon D600, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8.

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Curvature

One more shot with the 8mm fisheye. Another look at Publika in Solaris Dutamas. Nikon D7000, Samyang 8mm f/3.5

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The wheels are turning

Publika at Solaris Dutamas is an interesting, very arty place. For example, in the public square between buildings, there're old cable spools which have been turned into art pieces. The thing about using super wide angles like the Samyang 8mm is that you really have to get close to stuff if you want to show it larger in the frame -- even though it doesn't look like it, I was only about one foot from this giant spool. Nikon D7000, Samyang 8mm f3.5

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The world through a fisheye

Publika

I recently bought a fisheye lens. Usually, fisheye lenses, which have a 180-degree distorted view of the world, cost more than RM2000, but recently Korean company Samyang introduced an 8mm f/3.5 manual focus lens for just RM1200 (with built in aperture and distance microchip for Nikon compatibility). So after reading many positive reviews, I bought it and I have to say I'm really impressed. Wide open at f/3.5 it's a tad soft, but stop down to f/5.6 and everything is as sharp as you could want. The best thing about fisheye lenses is that manual focus is not a problem -- if you set it to minimum focus and set the aperture to between f/5.6 and f/11, everything will be in focus! Nikon D7000, Samyang 8mm f/3.5

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Shooting star

This is an image converted to black and white using the D7000's built in image editor and I have to say it turned out exactly like I wanted it to. When taking this photo, I had in mind one of those many Ikea photos that you can buy for your wall. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8.

Purple trumpet

I've known that 1Utama in Petaling Jaya had a "Secret Garden" on the rooftop, but it was only recently that I had time to visit it. Pretty interesting place and it's surprisingly well maintained for a rooftop garden. Just like the two other photos below, taking macro photos of flowers (and bugs) in the field is practically impossible without the help of flash, so all these shots were taken with me holding my camera in one hand while having a wireless flash pointed downwards with my other hand. This shot is exactly as shot with no editing or cropping. In macro work, careful framing and focus is really important -- I'm always acutely aware of the background, the framing and the focus. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8

Stars and heart

As you've probably noticed by now, I'm a big fan of macro photography. In macro at least this is where a DSLR with a purpose-built macro lens excels over compact cameras. Anyway, this shot is almost a direct conversion to black and white from the original colour image. I shot this with the intention of turning it into a monochrome image. Not much to say about it except that I just liked this composition. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8.

Come into my parlour

My dad's garden is a treasure trove of macro subjects. This pretty little spider was only about 2mm  and actually quite willing to let me sit there and shoot photo after photo. As always, it's nearly impossible to shoot a proper macro in available light, so I had an SB-600 held in one hand above the spider, while my right hand held the camera to shoot. The photo was taken with my 60mm macro lens at the nearest focus, while I rocked back and forth slightly to get the spider in focus. Getting the eyes in focus is the most important thing, and I had to shoot quite a few shots before I was satisfied. The image is slightly cropped to make the composition a little tighter. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8.

Footsteps

I didn't set up this shot. I just noticed that a kid had just left his wet footprints on the sand and snapped a couple of quick shots. I'm not even sure why the footprints only had a wet outline and wasn't wet all the way inside the print as well. I kinda laugh when I look at it because of an old Archie comic that revolved around the phrase, "footsteps in the sands of time." Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm f3.5-5.6 VR

Down by the seaside

Yes I'm not sure why but I'm still in a black and white mood. Anyway, I made a trip down to a seaside location to test out my 10-stop Neutral Density filter. What does it do? Well essentially, it's like dark glasses -- it makes things a LOT darker, and in a camera, this means slow shutter speeds, and the effect is that the sea is rendered as a smooth blur like this. The photo was converted from RAW and edited in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 and slightly cropped. You'd be surprised how little editing there was to get it to look like this-- the major work involved removing many dust spots. The image was shot at f/32 so every little bit of dust that normally doesn't show up on wider aperture shots all made an appearance here, despite cleaning my image sensor before going on the photo shoot. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm VR

Electric dreams

This shot was a simple grab shot with an Olympus E-PL3 I was testing. The subject is a friend's daughter who was totally engrossed playing Angry Birds on his smartphone. Originally shot in colour, I felt the image was better served in B+W so I converted it and did some minimal contrast adjustment. Olympus E-PL3, 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6

A Day at the Zoo

I haven't been to the National Zoo in Kuala Lumpur for a number of years now. The last time I went, it was pretty disappointing -- animals kept in cement enclosures with very little in the way of mental stimulation. However, when o went back today, it was a completely different story -- the Zoo has had a major remodeling and the animals have now been moved into properly landscaped enclosures with a more open concept, mostly without bars, very much like the Singapore Zoo or Taiping Zoo. One of the reasons I went to the zoo was to test out the new Tamron SP 70-300mm Di VC USD, a telephoto zoom that's reasonably priced yet offers some amazing images when used properly. Even at 300mm wide open at f/5.6, as this image is, results are really impressive with only a hint of softness and chromatic aberration which goes away if you stop down one stop to f/8. This photo is slightly cropped for balance and some contrast adjustment was made, but no sharpening. Nikon D7000, Tamron SP 70-300mm Di VC USD

Portrait of an Orangutan

The thing about shooting at the zoo is that you really need a long telephoto lens to get really tight portraits of animals. Here, again, I shot at 300mm with the Tamron, and the results were pretty good. The image has been cropped slightly on the right to better balance the composition. Nikon D7000, Tamron SP 70-300mm Di VC USD

Lazy leopard

This photo really bothers me a lot -- frankly, if I had gotten the leopard's right paw in the frame, the shot would've worked. As it is, my eye keeps getting drawn to the fact that the paw is just out of frame in this photo. Nevertheless, something to learn here apart from proper framing, is that even though I had a busy wire mesh between me and the leopard, shooting with the telephoto lens with the mesh quite close means that it'll be rendered completely out of focus in the shot, except for a slight greenish blur over the leopards back. Another thing to note is that the Tamron performed admirably when stopped down to f/8. Nikon's D7000, Tamron SP 70-300mm Di VC USD

Fighting flamingoes

I decided to go against conventional wisdom to present an image of flamingoes in full colour and instead decided to convert this shot into a more stark black and white image. I think stripping the colour away produces a more arresting image of these fighting flamingoes. Nikon D7000, Tamron SP 70-300mm Di VC USD

Bokehlicious

This shot only works because of the amazing bokeh -- the buttery smooth blur of the out of focus background -- and the almost painterly effect that you get because of this. I recently bought the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 which has the advantage of isolating the subject matter thanks to a shallow depth of field. In reality, if it were sharper in the background, you would clearly see the ugly wires holding up the flower pot and some other extraneous detail. With this shallow depth of field, I simply shot between two other leaves, made sure the front 3 flowers were sharp enough and blurred everything else out. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G